


Rings Hollow

by inveigler81



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 09:28:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8619013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inveigler81/pseuds/inveigler81
Summary: After the events of Serenity, the Alliance resort to using a chemical agent to assert their control, producing zombies. Gen fic, though mainly Mal, conflicted about whether to profit from or help the survivors. Written for Apocalyptothon.





	

“How many times I gotta tell you? Set her down over there!” Mal barked at Simon as he wrestled uneasily with the controls.

“Regardless of the current climate, I refuse to see how habitually crushing people with the ship is helping matters,” he retorted as Jayne stomped onto the bridge to check on their descent.

Simon’s stomach was light and he was sweating heavily. His hands and temperament were as steady as could be when it came to surgery, though why River felt those qualities should automatically translate to piloting a ship he still didn’t know. Pilots were hard to come by these days, especially ones that would fly where Mal wanted them to go. They were rarer still given the present state of things, a fact evidenced as Serenity roared low over a sparse desert landscape toward what looked like a wood of trees. Closer they were people. Closer still they were zombies.

“They ain’t people, they ain’t even Reavers – less than. Besides, it saves on ammo and it burns right off in atmo,” Mal countered levelly.

“You’re a horrible man,” Simon remarked with a sound and face of disgust.

“Smells like fried chicken too,” Jayne put in with a savage sneer.

“And you’re reprehensible,” Simon added after a horrified pause. Jayne made a sour expression and headed back out. “I’m not doing this again,” Simon shook his head and made to steer away from the horde of ragged beings Mal was determined he aim for.

“Tell you the truth, doc, I’m more worried Jayne seemed to know the word ‘reprehensible’. But I gave you an order, seems your sister and lil’ Kaylee have a world of faith in your abilities. Don’t give me a reason to disagree with them…anymore than usual,” Mal responded with a meaningful scowl. Simon let out a depressed sigh and half closed his eyes as he let the ship drop towards them. The sound was sickening even over the snarl of the engines.

“God…”

“He ain’t listenin’,” Mal quipped “‘sides – there’s so many of ‘em out there these days, it couldn’t be avoided.” He put a reassuring hand on Simon’s shoulder.

“Oh please, only last week you made a point of landing on the ones on that hillside!” Simon rounded on him, trying to block out the sounds of groans and dim poundings on the ship’s hull.

“And?”

“There were just the two of them!”

“I’ll give you that, but even you have to agree the one on the left looked a powerful lot like Badger,”

“That might be true. I wouldn’t really know what he looked like without a landing gear through his torso,” Simon kept up.

“Surprised you take such issue with all of it doc, what with all the cuttin’ you keep doin’ on Gerald and all,” Mal taunted him as he turned to go.

“His name isn’t Gerald! It’s Test Subject 43! Besides, any possible progress that can be made in researching a cure or a vaccine for this…thing…needs to be done. I can’t just sit idly by!” It hadn’t helped matters that the others routinely named the zombies upon which he conducted experiments. It helped less still when River told him their actual names and the more sordid details of their deaths and behaviour since.

“You ain’t sittin’ idle. Once the Mule’s clear I want her back in the air. Don’t much fancy scraping one out of the intakes again,” Mal stated seriously as he disappeared down the steps.

“I seem to remember I had to…” Simon began to argue, trying desperately to block out several mental images at once.

“All the more reason,” Mal cut him off as his voice trailed away.

~

“Mornin’ lil’ one. Ready for a ride?” Mal asked River as he came into the hangar, stood just inside the entryway, lent against the wall. She was regaled in the various accoutrements she’d collected over time that she felt appropriate for missions. These primarily consisted of a pair of sidearms grudgingly gifted by Jayne, a pair of swords acquired from an antique dealer somewhere on Beaumont, a ragged poncho and a weathered black Stetson. He did his best to mask a smile as she fell in behind him. She always wore the Stetson for jobs and a knitted rainbow hat from Jayne’s mother whenever she got the chance to fly. “I’ll take that as a resounding yes,” he commented on her silence.

“We really need to be here?” Jayne groused as he clattered down the steps from one of the gantries.

“How many times?” Mal scowled at him as he came to stand by the Mule, kicking lightly at Kaylee’s boots where she lay beneath it. “You just can’t keep from fiddlin’ can ya?”

“Just tryin’ to balance out the extra weight Cap’n,” She responded, ratcheting something tighter with a wrench. The Mule wasn’t a pretty sight, adorned now with an array of blades and spikes designed to help keep unwanted passengers at bay or put them down for good. “Course it’d be nicer not to have to be listenin’ to that,” she added quietly, the groans and the pounding all the worse as they echoed around the hangar.

“I dunno, sounds to me like they’re tryin’ to get a rhythm going,” he offered in jest. “I gonna have to listen to your moaning the whole way out there?”

“Hey, you wanna listen to her belly achin’ instead, that’s your business. I just don’t see why I need to come along,” Jayne complained as he mounted up, setting the craft to rocking.

“If you’re scared…” Mal taunted as he climbed aboard himself and turned to offer River a hand.

“I ain’t gorram scared!” Jayne snapped, “It’s just these things – they’s worse than Reavers. Least Reavers put up a fight, these things just wander around an’ moan an’ eat…”

“Reminds me a lot of someone, can’t quite put my finger on who…”

“They want your brain,” River spoke matter-of-factly. “They want mine more because mine’s bigger,” she added with a testing smile, peering back at him, fathomless eyes flickering beneath the brim of her hat.

“She have to come?” Jayne muttered.

“You need to ask?” Mal’s expression was the tired side of exasperated.

“Decapitation is an elegant and efficient death. There was a time it was the preferred method of execution upon Earth-that-was. Their warrior peoples incorporated it into ritualistic actions of honourable death.” River spoke out of left field. She smiled wryly and looked down at her hands. She’d gained a stronger grip on her mind but it still had its ways.

“That so?” Mal tried at something like reassurance rather than sarcasm.

“It’s often been supposed the sudden and relatively trauma-free removal of the head allows it to live on for a time beyond separation,” she added, directing the factoid at Jayne.

“What she say?” Jayne asked, looking around in alarm as he stowed spare ammunition.

“Nothin’ you need to worry about,” Mal sighed and started flipping controls as Kaylee finally slid out from beneath the craft.

“Be careful out there Cap’n,” she stated almost sternly as she went to open up the bay doors.

“When am I not?” He smiled at her.

“Give my love to Zoe,” she added as Jayne and River drew weapons and held them loosely at the ready.

“That I will,” he nodded as the doors ground open and the ramp went down. “For all the good it’ll do.” He muttered under his breath as he slammed the throttle forward.

~

“I swear this place gets uglier every time I see it,” Mal muttered, surveying the ramshackle community of shacks and huts. There had been the usual rigmarole of checks and passwords and searches and mirrors and tongue depressors, all about as worthless as the next. The guns and guards and gates were employed to somewhat better effect.

“Could say the same about you sir,” Zoe cut back, looking in no mood to humour him.

“Distinguished’s the word I’m going with these days,” he retorted, ruffling at his hair, a coating of dust not helping the encroaching grey. “How you holdin’ up?” He asked with genuine concern.

“Worse than ever.” Her voice was distant and her eyes were hard and cold.

“All jokin’ aside, things don’t look too bad…colorful y’might say…but…”

“You bring supplies or not?” She cut straight through his cordial joviality.

“You know me...” He shrugged and made at a wolfish grin.

“I thought I did.” Her tone was bitter.

“Meanin’ what exactly?” The grin disappeared.

“Never figured you to still be sitting on a fence. Time was, things were this bad…”

“I’d what? Run off an’ join an army? Look around you Zoe. The war is done. The ‘verse is done.” His voice rose and took on a keener edge, his shoulders rising with that forgotten air of command. “Now it was your decision to come down here and set up this little shanty town of yours, probably one of the worst you ever made…”

“That before or after marrying Wash?” It was impossible to read whether the remark was intended to placate him or wound him. “I’m just tryin’ to make a difference.” Zoe let out a long sigh and looked away to the horizon. The sun was sinking low and picked out groups of shuffling shapes, distantly visible from atop the compound’s walls.

“What do you want from me?” He asked levelly.

“Not a thing.” She threw up her hands.

“What is it you really think you can accomplish down here anyways?”

“Hold out against that bastard up there,” Zoe stared skyward, a look equal parts disgust and contempt.

“Well you know my feelin’s on that particular subject,” Mal tried again at levity.

“I’m not talking about God sir…I’m talkin’ about the station.” Little in her look changed as she turned it on him.

“I need to keep my boat flying. In case you hadn’t noticed, there ain’t a powerful lot of people left handing out work, fuel or food anymore. Hell, there ain’t even a powerful lot of people.”

“Really?!” Now it was her turn for sarcasm.

“Look, can’t says I care much for the man. I’d probably rather spend a night with one of those things out there but they’re workin’ on a cure or some such up there. Least that’s what I think the doctor was ramblin’ on about…”

“I know…they abduct people from here to use as test cases. We brought down one of their raiders and they retaliated by air-dropping infected into the compound…” Her voice trailed off, he knew the signs himself of horrors replayed behind the eyes.

“That a fact?” The question was more to mask the ripple of quiet fury than anything else.

“I ever lie to you?” Zoe’s voice was old and weary but somewhere in there was the glimmer of the woman who’d lain pressed against him in a filthy foxhole with fire falling all around. It was a question that needed no answer, but he gave one all the same.

“Not a once.”

“Now I can’t say we’re not grateful for the supplies and if you choose to ally yourself with Farcus and his station, then that’s your business and I can’t stop you. But that being the case, I’d thank you to never set foot near my town again…sir.”

~

Mal’s mood was the darker side of pensive as he guided the Mule back across the dusk landscape, gliding the savage edges of it needlessly nearer the groaning hordes out of sheer petulance. Appendages and torsos spiralled away into the gathering night accompanied by grotesque gouts of viscous blood. River demonstrated her uncanny balance, something ordinarily a marvel to him. She lent far enough over the side to deliver surgical sword strikes while balanced precariously on naught but a few toes. Jayne took pot shots left and right as they drew nearer to the landing point.

“The head Jayne!” Mal roared at him as he took out the knees of yet another unsuspecting creature.

“I just like to watch ‘em squirm,” Jayne shouted back over the noise of the engines and the blinding blasts of buckshot. The remark resonated uncomfortably with Mal, reminding him too closely of the man whose employ he was now in.

~

The zombie moaned loudly as it lurched unsteadily forward towards Simon. It was a hideous, guttural noise from somewhere deep within its core. It conveyed its sole remaining thought, its only driving need, as it staggered across the hangar, arms snatching at empty air and swaying from side to side. The smell was unspeakable, the pungent odour seeming to have more life than the cadaverous body. It’s face was half fallen away and its emaciated form jutted through gaps in it’s soiled clothing.

“Simon, this isn’t a good idea,” Kaylee’s voice quavered a little from behind his shoulder.

“It’ll help…it will, I need another one to be able to run comparative tests. In order to have a control subject…” he tried to explain, surprised at the amount of pity in his own voice.

It wasn’t their fault. After the broadwave, things changed. Or at least they tried to. People started to rise up, a thing that generally led to martial law and emergency measures. Those measures sadly included the deployment of a newer and thoroughly untried form of the Pax. The results were somewhere in the middle of the last form. The population became half subdued, half monstrous. They didn’t lie down and they didn’t cut swathes through the galaxy – they did a little of both. Rendered nearly lifeless and cold, without breath or a beating heart, just the hunger.

Something was different in this toxin. It took up residence somewhere, perpetually fuelling itself, communicable through fluid transfer. The problem had been compounded by the slow onset of symptoms, both from the original release of the agent and from those subjected to bites and other injuries. Those seeking to flee one world simply took the problem to the next. The remnants of the Alliance on the central planets had embarked a fleet for a newly discovered system. Now there was no telling whether there was even anything habitable out there or if they’d arrive with little more than ships peopled by the living dead.

“I’m thinkin’ control was what caused this in the first place,” Kaylee spoke with equal sadness.

“I know what you mean, but we have to…” Simon was interrupted as the ramp began to lower, “Oh no! They’re early!”

There was a bright flash and the deafening ring of a shotgun blast as what was left of the zombie collapsed forward onto the deck. The Mule flooded the hangar with a rush of dust and noise as it surged up the ramp.

“Got that one in the head. Happy now?” Jayne was asking Mal as he killed the engines. The Captain leapt down from the mule and strode purposefully towards Simon.

“Captain, this is intolerable, that mentally defective man-ape…” Simon began to reason, playing towards everyone’s general distaste for Jayne’s methodology. Apparently it was ill-timed as Mal seized him by the front of his shirt and slammed him against a bulkhead.

“Cap’n!” Kaylee yelped at him as the Captain’s fingers strayed dangerously close to a holster.

“I don’t want more than one of those things anywhere near this ship again you hear me?” His voice was a low growl and there was something dangerous in his eyes. Simon knew better than to argue at a time like this.

“Yes,” he answered sourly and Mal’s grip loosened somewhat but he didn’t let go.

“Now I gave you an order. You were supposed to remain airborne. Speaking of which, who in the hell is…” Mal’s voice trailed off as the growl of engines sounded from outside the ship.

~

“River!!!” Simon and Mal shouted in unison as they clambered their way up through the dining area, Serenity climbing at an absurdly steep angle. As they cleared the fiery glow of the atmosphere the nose dropped, allowing Mal to make it to the bridge. He slid swiftly into the co-pilot’s seat and put a hand to the controls before rounding on River. Simon expected him to start shouting some more but his voice was level and calm. He could never be sure if it was something Mal reserved solely for her or something she brought out in him.

“I got it darlin’…you can ease off now…that’s it. Now we’ve talked about this…”

“I know…I’m sorry…I just miss dancing with her…” River spoke quietly and saddened, running a loving hand over a console. Her fingers danced past where she had neatly arranged Wash’s plastic dinosaurs and palm trees, providing each with a label in Latin and a use-name of Wash’s. A particularly graceful plesiosaur labelled Zoe, a stout triceratops named Hoban.

“I’m sure she misses you too… you’re just a little too…efficient shall we say? Now why don’t you go bother Kaylee for a spell?” He actually made it more of a question than an order.

“No bother. I see her too clearly, too cold and too clean and too clinical, like an X-Ray. Kaylee sees her differently, knows where to touch, where to bite, where to stroke…like a lover…” River spoke longingly as she pirouetted past Simon, running a stray finger across his cheek. The fluffy bobbles of her rainbow striped hat trailed behind her like orbiting stars as she headed for the engine room.

“Captain, I can assure you…” Simon spoke steadily as he came cautiously onto the bridge.

“I really don’t need to hear it right now doctor. You planning on taking us into shuttle range of the station or you got cuttin’ to do?” There was no hint of apology but some of the anger had ebbed away from him.

“Well actually I’ve found a combination of compounds that act as a sedative. I’ve been able to render the subject into a lowered state of consciousness…” Simon began explaining what his afternoon’s tests had yielded.

“English, doc. Hell, I’ll even settle for Mandarin.”

“Gerald’s asleep.” Simon gave in.

“Well ain’t that a thing? Wonder if zombies have dreams,” Mal smiled darkly at him as Simon took over the controls.

“Well actually, my case studies show that their brains are rendered…” he responded in earnest as Mal headed back towards the shuttles. He paused and look at Simon, both tired and worn.

“Joke, doc. Not a very good one, I’ll warrant you that…just take her in close, nice and steady. Then I conjure you’ll be needin’ a mop for that mess back there.”

~

“Captain Reynolds! It’s delightful to see you again,” Farcus greeted Mal, flanked by two of his soldiers. Mal often wondered if the man even knew what the word ‘delightful’ meant given the way in which he usually said it. He was in his early 40s, greying, dark hair, slicked back from his brow. His eyes were dark and tended to glint unnaturally. It wasn’t something that intimidated Mal, more it unsettled him as to the man’s capabilities.

“It’s good to be seen,” he responded evenly.

“How fares your ship and your crew?” His question was irritation masked by feigned interest. The two of them set off walking together through the stale corridors of the aging space station. Mal never put in at the place, always choosing to keep Serenity at a safe distance.

“Well enough.”

“You look troubled, Captain. Problems with the collection?” This question was more of a challenge. He was fishing for something.

“No more than usual. The supply depot was where you said it’d be – handful of zombies to deal with, but we’ve seen worse.” Mal didn’t bite.

“Our scans noted that you made an unscheduled trip to the surface upon your return,” Farcus stated coldly.

“Oh that!...that was…”

“Very charitable of you…I dare say, though ill advised. Have no fear, I certainly don’t intend to penalise you for trying to help those foolhardy savages down there, I’d simply prefer it if it weren’t to happen again.” Venom ran in between his words.

“Wouldn’t exactly call ‘em foolhardy,” Mal wasn’t about to show signs of backing down.

“Trying to eek out a pitiful existence on a dead, infected world? What else would you call it Captain?” Farcus sounded incredulous.

“Headstrong perhaps…”

“You know I am still surprised and impressed that you are open to dealing with me, even to the point of giving up arms,” he made it sound like more of a warning than a compliment.

“And why’s that?” Mal was uncaring though sorely missing his sidearm.

“Well you know full well of my past ties to the Alliance, though I hasten to add that by remaining in situ I was in violation of my orders and automatically stripped of any rank.” He sounded like he actually believed it.

“You still seem to been prospering pretty well.”

“Predominantly an affected illusion, I assure you Captain.” Those eyes took to their more sinister glinting. “You still look perturbed, sir? Issues with your former lieutenant, perchance?”

“Nothing a few zombies from on high wouldn’t fix,” Mal forced half a laugh to smooth Farcus’ glimpse of being startled.

“I certainly wouldn’t go listening to every slanderous remark you hear said about me Captain. I’ve repeatedly offered those poor souls all residence here aboard the station, something they’ve routinely refused. All it would take is the requisite screening and rezoning and a willingness to contribute to our burgeoning little economy.” He failed miserably at sounding reasonable.

“And a jackboot to the neck,” Mal muttered under his breath.

“I’m sorry?” Farcus sounded indignant.

“Nothing…”

“Any progress on arranging an engagement with the Tams? I’d be ever so delighted to meet them, especially River…” The slant on her name was worse than the one on the word delighted.

“I’ll bring it up.”

~

The drift of perfumes and incense was unmistakeable as he entered her chambers. Inara stood with her back to him, a jewel box ballerina in the midst of extravagance and patterns and ancient wood. She whirled before he could even begin to speak and slapped him hard across the face.

“Good to see you too,” Mal grimaced and touched at the nick a ring had made in his lip.

“How can you even stand the sight of yourself?!” She demanded heatedly. “And don’t you ever knock?!”

“Excuse me?” He opted for wilful ignorance, often his safest tack.

“Men and women and children are dying down there Mal…probably even as we speak.” The look in her eye and the sink in her voice were too akin to Zoe’s.

“And yet here we stand on the shiny space station of your good friend Farcus…” Mal goaded her.

“I do what I can to provide Zoe with information and advance warning of…” Inara’s tone turned to acid.

“Wonder how you come by that information? It wouldn’t be a biblical friendship by any chance would it?” He aimed for familiar ground.

“Oh no! You don’t ever get to look down upon me or my profession ever again!”

“No wonder it’s the oldest one there is…”

“And here I was thinking that the day would never come when I’d get to be the one calling you a whore…”

“That’s still a ways off!” Mal interrupted sharply, “Y’might say I have loose morals, sure…”

“Oh really? What would you call getting paid for the things you do for the people you now work for?” she demanded.

“They’re the only people left! Goram it!” The anger and self-revulsion that had been simmering all evening boiled over, “When is somebody going to wake up and realise that this is all there is?! Now principles were mighty fine and shiny things before the shit hit the fan but they got no place here. The Alliance tucked tail and ran and took anyone who could pay with ‘em. The Reavers decided to get into an eating contest with our new friends and lost and I’m left caught between the millstones of a man who wants to live it up like he’s the king of Sinon and a woman who thinks she’s the great martyr of all independence in the history of the idea and now I’m getting lectured by a…” he raged at her.

“By a what?!” Inara all but hissed in his face, “Say it! I dare you!”

“God! What I wouldn’t give for one woman in my life to not cause me trouble!” he railed back, taking a step towards her.

“You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if something wasn’t causing you trouble!” The proximity of her made something else course along the same lines as the heat of his anger.

“That so?! I love that everyone has this grand idea that I always need me a war to fight. I had plans for my future!” Mal threw his hands up and turned away. He’d been holding that something else in check for years, no sense changing that now.

“Plans?” It had less barbs but it was still a dig.

“Yeah…they generally involved some quiet time and a comfortable chair of some description…”

“A comforta…” Annoyance couldn’t stifle all of a swallowed laugh. Some of the enmity evaporated.

“I miss this.” Mal spoke quietly, breathing deeply and looking at the floor. He didn’t say it to hurt or to bring any look to her eye.

“Then stay.” Inara’s voice was artfully soft, making him turn back to her.

“I can’t, you said it yourself.” He was all business and tired resolve once more.

“Then go. Fight. Steal. Do whatever it is you need to do. This isn’t you Mal, all plans and chairs and…anything else aside.” There was the touch of an ache of what that anything might be. “Farcus is a bad man, and I don’t mean your kind of bad. He’s milking what little these people have left and believe me they’d be glad to see the last of him. What he’s doing to those people down there is unthinkable. Now either you can live with that or you can do something about it.” It was either heartfelt honesty or one of the more skilled plays he’d recently seen her make. He hoped for the former.

“Zoe said, abducting, pillaging, droppin’ zombies and the like…”

“That’s not the worst of it,” she sounded surprised he didn’t know.

“What else?” The words caught in the grit of his teeth.

“He has a team working to repair one of the atmosphere processors on the surface and even you can guess what he’s planning on doing with that once it’s operational.” A swift course of necessity flared through Mal’s find, resources preceding strategy.

“You get your hands on a gun or two if you had a need?”

“Of course…but why?”

~

“Now they’re not all ripe yet but I figured with a just a little sugar we could…” Simon didn’t get finished explaining. Perhaps he should’ve waited a moment more before removing his hands from her eyes but the way Kaylee turned and kissed him like her life depended upon it kept him from regretting it too much.

“An’ you say you’re no good at keepin’ secrets,” Kaylee breathed as she pulled away, giving off the perennial intoxicant of sweetness and engine grease. She darted a hand out to one of the half green, half red strawberries nestled in a small container on the kitchen counter of which Jayne had helpfully eaten three during Simon’s absence. Of course Mal would pick this of all moments to make his return.

“We need to talk,” he barked at Simon, breaking stride only to express without words that he wanted Simon to follow him.

“Cap’n he didn’t do anything wrong! Gerald’s locked up tight. He’s done everything that you…” Kaylee went on a plaintive defensive.

“Kaylee! Hush!” Mal clutched at the air with untold frustration.

“No sir, I will not, I will…” Kaylee kept right on with her tirade.

“You really thought that’d work?” Jayne commented quietly, working a knife edge against a whetstone at the dinner table.

“Something has to, eventually…” Mal muttered as he stalked off towards the bridge.

“Kaylee it’s ok,” Simon put calming hands on her shoulders and then turned to follow the Captain.

“What is it?” He asked with trepidation as he came onto the bridge.

“Close the door,” Mal instructed, slumped in the pilot’s seat staring out at the black. Simon did as he said and lent back against the cool of the metal.

“What…”

“Could you make good with that station?” Mal asked abruptly.

“I don’t understand…make good…?” Simon was confused.

“If you had the run of that place, could you turn this thing around?”

“Turn it around?! Captain we’re not even sure if there are any uninfected worlds left in this system. Let alone what, if anything, befell the Alliance fleet after its departure. Make good in what possible sense?” Simon would’ve sounded incredulous if Mal didn’t have that determined air about him. It was something that had been absent for a long while, buried somewhere under a mantle of responsibility and misplaced guilt. “You spoke to me once about a raggedy edge and us being the ones on it, well I say to you now that for that to still be the case there would have to be something left for us to be on the edge of.” He chose his words carefully.

“Good for us, and good for Zoe and them down there,” Mal clarified, something about him showing through as burnt and broken by making too many of the kind of decisions Simon hoped he would never have to face.

“That’s not much.” Simon let out a sigh. “But it is possible I could turn up something, I’m not sure what exactly, but given the right facilities and equipment it is entirely possible we could at least find a way to inoculate what few survivors there are. And I mean legitimately inoculate, not that snake-oil Farcus has been peddling to his unfortunate little populace.” He spoke with strong distaste, “But this is purely hypothetical. Farcus would never let me near his labs. Any progress that’s gleaned from anything he’ll simply use to solidify his control over what little that’s left. What’s more I still suspect he has hopes or designs of extracting something, anything, from River,”

“Don’t go worrying yourself about that, doc.”

“What exactly is it that you’re proposing?” He had Simon intrigued.

“You got dinner plans tomorrow night?”

~

“I must say that this is most unexpected, Captain.” Farcus still seemed to be sizing Mal up as he led the way to the docking collar.

“Well, I raised the idea. The doctor, Simon…said he was open to it, provided we met on mutual ground. I figure the shuttle craft’s about the closest thing we’ve got.” Mal nodded at the hatch.

“Shuttle craft…” He looked at the battered hatchway as if it had just insulted his parentage.

“Don’t fret, Inara’s given it the once over. Believe me, if it gets her seal of approval then it is most definitely up to muster,” Mal blustered and put on his best winning smile.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” The distain in Farcus’s voice made Mal’s fingers play involuntarily at an absent pistol butt. “Well?” He looked enquiringly at the guard waiting by the hatch.

“It’s clean sir, no weapons aboard, only the one life sign. It’s Dr. Tam.” The guard confirmed.

“Thank you. That will be all.” Farcus dismissed the soldier, who reluctantly trooped away down the corridor. “So I finally get to meet the illustrious Simon Tam, how delightful. Any particular reason why his sister declined to attend?”

“Having one of her turns, I’m afraid. She’s a little out of sorts for company as…civilized as yourself,” Mal managed it with a straight face.

“No need for false platitudes, Captain,” Farcus waved a hand at him dismissively as he opened the hatch and stepped inside. “Dr. Tam!” He enthused like a leering cat as he moved to shake Simon’s hand. Then something made him freeze.

“W…wait…who….what is that?!” He gestured frantically at something. He was too horrified to even notice as Simon moved swiftly past him and out the hatch into the station. Mal remained steadfastly outside the doorway, one hand on the controls.

“Oh I’m none too good with names, he’s been dying to meet you though. No, no…it’s coming back to me…I think he said his name was Gerald.” Mal’s voice was nothing but cold steel as the hatch closed with a hiss, a moan and a scream.


End file.
